Moving ahead with its endeavor to provide selfless service as a part of its Decennial celebrations, Tulu Koota Kuwait in the year 2010 announced the launch of its “Kidney Dialysis Project“ a venture undertaken to benefit the BPL ( Below Poverty Line ) and most deserving kidney patients of Tulunadu.

What is Dialysis ?

Dialysis is a medical process through which a person's blood is cleansed of the toxins the kidneys normally would flush out. It is generally used when a person's kidneys no longer function properly. This can be a result of congenital kidney disease, long-term diabetes, high blood pressure or other.

Why is Dialysis necessary?

Approximately 1,500 liters of blood are filtered by a healthy person's kidneys each day. We could not live if waste products were not removed from our kidneys. People whose kidneys either do not work properly or not at all experience a buildup of waste in their blood.

Without dialysis the amount of waste products in the blood would increase and eventually reach levels that would cause coma and death. Dialysis is also used to rapidly remove toxins or drugs from the blood.

Two main types of dialysis :

1)Hemodialysis

2)Peritoneal Dialysis

What is Hemodialysis ?

Hemodialysis is probably the procedure that most people are familiar with. This procedure is performed at a hospital or dialysis centre. The patient is hooked up, via a tube in the veins, to a machine that circulates his blood through a machine, through semi permeable filters that take out the toxins in the blood. The filters do what the kidney’s do; they filter out the waste products from the blood.

Hemodialysis usually lasts about 3 to 4 hours each week. The duration of each session depends on how well the patient's kidneys work, and how much fluid weight the patient has gained between treatments.

What is Peritoneal dialysis ?

Peritoneal dialysis can be done in the home, by the patient, either alone or with a helper.

A sterile (dialysate) solution rich in minerals and glucose is run through a tube into the peritoneal cavity, the abdominal body cavity around the intestine, where the peritoneal membrane acts as a semi-permeable membrane.

Peritoneal dialysis uses the natural filtering ability of the peritoneum.

What are the symptoms of kidney failure?

Kidney failure tends to happen gradually. Even if just one kidney works, or both work partially, normal kidney function is still possible. So, it can be a very long time before any symptoms are noticed by the patient. When symptoms do occur they tend to be different from person-to-person, making it harder for doctors to diagnose kidney failure quickly. The following symptoms may be present :

Fatigue (tiredness)

Frequent need to urinate, especially at night. Frequency grows with time

A sudden injury can cause kidney failure. When it does, symptoms tend to appear faster, and progress more rapidly as well.
People with chronic kidney disease are usually affected by anemia (90% of them).

What are the causes of kidney disease?

Diabetes - thought to cause about half of all cases

Hypertension (high blood pressure) - thought to cause about one quarter of all cases

India gets 1.5 lakh (150,000) patients with kidney failures every year and a majority of them die within five years due to the acute shortage of dialysis units in the country.

There are only 1,470 Hemodialysis units in the whole country, whereas 40,000 of them are immediately required.

Less than 10% of the total patients requiring dialysis are able to avail the facility, while only half of them are able to afford it on long term basis, due to cost, time and logistical factors.

Hemodialysis treatment is very expensive. A patient normally receives dialysis at least thrice a week, and the cost of dialysis ranges from IRS 800/- to 1200/- per visit.

The medicines are also equally costly and a majority of the patients are not able to afford this treatment. Adding to the problem, health insurance policies do not cover the cost of dialysis owing to the high cost.

All applicants must complete the ‘Kidney Dialysis Assistance Request’ application form (which can be downloaded from Tulukoota Kuwait website or would be available with the Management Supervisory Committee (MSC) of Tulu Koota Kuwait based in Udupi & Mangalore.

All sections of the form must be completed fully. Applicants are also required to provide supporting information as requested in the form.

MSC will notify the applicants by telephone/email (whichever communication means easily accessible to the applicant) within one week of receiving such application.

For any further queries about completing the form or any other additional information, the applicant can contact any of the below Managing Supervisory committee members :